P. Parrish - Claw Back

Katy took a drink of beer, her eyes going back out over the darkening gulf.

“When the Creator was making the earth, he put the animals in a large shell, telling them that when the time was right they would all crawl out,” she went on. “He told the panther that because he was the most majestic and patient of all animals that he was the perfect one to walk the earth first. Then he sealed up the shell and left.”

“What happened?” Louis asked, when she didn’t go on.

“A tree grew next to the shell and its roots cracked the shell open but no animals came out,” Katy said. “The panther was patient, too patient. So the wind, which knew the Creator wanted the panther to come out first, blew on the shell so hard the crack grew larger and the panther came out. Then all the other animals came out too.”

She laid her head back on the lounge.

“The Creator watched all this and decided to put all the animals into clans,” she said. “For being his faithful companion the creator gave the panther with special qualities. Your clan, he said, will have knowledge of all special things. You will have the power to heal.”

Louis had a vague memory from his research this morning, something about the Seminoles being divided into clans.

“Do your people still have clans?” he asked.

She seemed surprised by the question. “Yeah, we do,” she said. “Your clan is inherited through your mother. There used to be more clans but many went extinct. There are only eight left — panther, bear, deer, wind, bird, snake, otter and Big Town.”

“Big Town?”

“It was created for non-Indian women. The myth is that during the Seminole wars in the eighteen-hundreds, two white girls were found wandering in the woods. The Seminoles took them in but because they didn’t have Indian mothers, they could belong to no clan. So one was created for them.”

It was dark now. The signal from the Tampa station had faded, the music a dull murmur of static drowned out by the surf’s whisper.

And then, a plaintive meow.

Louis sat up, looking to the screen door. Issy’s black form was just visible outside. He rose and held the door open. The cat came onto the porch, pausing to look up at Katy.

“You have a cat?” she said.

“I told you I did.”

Issy came to her, arching her back against Katy’s leg. Katy set her beer bottle down and bent low, running her hand over the cat’s sides.

“What’s her name?”

“Issy.”

The cat suddenly bounded off into the cottage.

“Well, I think it’s time for me to go,” Katy said.

When she awkwardly tried to extricate herself from the lounge, Louis rose quickly and helped her to her feet. He reached inside the door and slapped the porch light switch. When Katy headed toward her truck, he followed.

She paused at her truck’s door, turning toward him.

“I thought you were bullshitting me about having a cat,” she said.

“I’m not much of a bullshitter.”

Her face, reflected in the porch light, was unreadable. She got in the truck but turned to him, elbow on the open window.

“Look,” she said. “I spent all day thinking about this. I still don’t think a Seminole would harm a panther but I am willing to let this investigation go where it needs to go. I want to find Grace and I want you to stay on the case. Do you want to?”

“Yes,” Louis said. “Call me in the morning and we’ll talk about our next move.”

She gave him a nod and started the truck.

“Your cat is really thin,” she said.

“I know.”

“How old is she?”

“I don’t know.” Louis hesitated. “I’m worried she dying.”

“Old cats get thyroid disease,” Katy said. “She’ll probably be okay with meds. Have her tested, okay?”

Before Katy could leave, Louis put a hand on the open window.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he said.

“Sure.”

“What clan do you belong to?”

She hesitated. “Snake.”

“Not my first guess,” he said.

She gave him an odd smile and jammed the truck into drive, pulling out of the yard.

Louis watched until the tail lights disappeared down Captiva Drive then went back into the cottage. Issy was waiting by her empty bowl in the kitchen. He poured a bag of Tender Vittles into her bowl and sat at the counter, watching her as she ate.

When she was finished, he picked her up, grabbed a fresh beer and went back to the porch. There he sat, watching the silver curtain of rain move in from Gulf and stroking Issy’s thinning fur.

The thing was lying in the middle of the road.

At first Louis thought it was a big log but after he slowly moved the Jeep ahead, he hit the brakes hard.

Alligator. It was a damn alligator.

It was at least twelve feet long and it was sprawled straight across the width of the dirt road.

Louis inched closer until the fat tires were almost touching the thing. It didn’t move.

Louis stood up in the seat and scanned the sides of the road but the brush was too thick and soggy so there was no way to turn around. And by his calculations he had left the paved road at least five miles back so he wasn’t about to go back all that way in reverse.

He had been out here for almost two hours already, driving around in circles in the open vehicle. He had a headache from the sun baking his head and his kidneys felt like they were going to fall out from all the jostling. He wasn’t sure he was even on the right road.

He looked back at the gator and laid hard on the horn.

The thing still didn’t budge. Didn’t even move a slitted eye in his direction.

Fuck!

He looked in the back for something he could throw. Nothing but a big empty Coleman cooler. He had a water bottle but he wasn’t about to sacrifice that. There was probably a jack and crowbar somewhere but he’d be damned if he was going to get out and look. He glanced down at the holster on the passenger seat. With one eye on the gator, he slipped out the Glock, pointed it at the dirt and fired.

The alligator gave a loud hiss and slithered off into the brush.

Louis holstered the Glock, sat back down behind the wheel and continued down the rutted dirt road.

This trip had seemed like a good idea this morning when he went into the station to pick up the four-wheel drive Mobley had promised him.

The cop manning the desk in the garage was named Sergeant Sweet, but he had given Louis the same sour look all the cops had been giving him. The rogue PI, riding his way into the department on an EEOC horse. That’s what they all thought. Sweet asked Louis if he was “working the panther thing.”

When Louis said he was, the sergeant said his ten-year-old daughter had started a petition in her class to get the Florida panther named the state animal and she was sad about the one that had gone missing.

“Find the damn cat,” the sergeant said. “I don’t want to have to tell my kid the thing is dead.”

Then he handed over the keys to a souped-up Jeep that had been commandeered from a drug raid and told Louis that he should check out “the weirdos out in the swamp camps.”

There were hundreds of hunting camps on private land in the Everglades, the sergeant explained. After the federal government created the preserves in the seventies, the camps were grandfathered in and a handful still existed, handed down from one generation to the next.

Most were down south of I-75 but there was one just a few miles from where Grace had disappeared, the sergeant said. It was called Hell’s Hammock.

Be careful, he added, they’re all mouth-breathers who love their guns and hate the government. And that includes anyone wearing a badge.

Louis hadn’t told anyone else where he was going. He hadn’t even called Katy.